Topical sequencing of questions and advance organizers impacting on students' examination performance

Educators are concerned that the topically-sequenced examination version lead to higher scores in comparison to a random version. It is reasoned that students benefit from having a topically-sequenced examination as it leads them to recall information in the same order in which they learned it. However, such studies have found mixed results when comparing these two versions of a common examination. This study also examines the use of advance organizers to facilitate learning. An advance organizer presents information at a higher level of abstraction, generalization, and inclusiveness than subsequent material to be learned. This study found the topically-sequenced version outperforming the random version over four examinations of a managerial accounting course. However, there were no detected main effects for advance organizers after controlling for differences in students, examinations, and the topically-sequenced versus random versions of the examinations. Yet, an interaction for the two versions of an examination and the degree that tested material relied on an advance organizer was found to influence examination performance. Further research into the use of advance organizers and their impact on academic performance is presented.